The other day my wife, Marge handed me her copy of the Readers Digest and suggested that I read the article she bookmarked for me. The article was written by a fellow who basically grew up spending most of his youth in the family bar. Most of his time spent while growing was sitting at a back table and observing the bar’s eclectic customers. This was so familiar to me since my dad owned a bar at which I started working behind at a very young and illegal age. Back in those days neighborhood bars were a second home for a whole bunch of interesting, and some strange, characters. Television was new to the world and not every household was lucky or wealthy enough to have one. Boy! Marge had no idea that reading this article would bring back so many memories of my time at Scotties (name of our family bar). It’s really funny how the brain works as we age, especially for me at 85. I head down to the office to look something up on the computer but by the time I get to my chair I’ve already forgotten why I came down. But just sitting back and starting to think about things like the regular customers at Scotties and everything comes back clear as a bell. I can see all the faces, remember their stories and even recall a few of the conversations.
We had quite a variety of customers: many blue collar workers that labored in one of a slew of factories in New Britain at that time. But we had accountants, the program director for WTIC, the traffic Manager at North and Judd. Our customers included men from every craft you could think of, electrical, carpentry, plumbing, masonry, and even had customers who installed telephones, climbed power line poles. My dad had all the connections needed to get any job he needed to get done. Whenever one of these requirements came up I became an apprentice. Not always a welcome position, but I did learn a great deal from these men. There was no longer a job I could not handle. In fact I learned so much that our program director customer, Paul, offered me a job at WTIC to host a call in radio show where people would call in seeking solutions to building and repair questions. Needless to say I declined and stayed with the booze business until I took a sales position selling bolts, nuts, and screws. You name it, we had representation. What memories they bring back for me. But I digress, I was writing about some of the customers.
A little fellow, whose name I never knew, since he never talked, would come in after work and plunk down 50 cents on the bar. When I saw him coming I had to pour a draft and wait for the empty glass since he would take it down in one long drag. He did this five times in a row, turned and walked out the door. You have to remember that our draft beet at that time was 10 cents a glass.
Had a customer, name was Mike, older fellow who came in almost every day and spent most of the evening watching TV. Mike also was a man of very few words. He would order a glass of Port wine and sit there sipping it for most of the night. At time he’d end up ordering a second glass.
You knew when Danny came in after work at one of the local factories because of the smell, not from him, but from the cigars he smoked. We had to stock some black, skinny twisted Stogies for our very good customer Danny. I cannot honestly remember ever selling one to anyone else but Danny. Danny was a character, but a very nice guy. He moonlighted as a plumber and did all our repairs and installed all the plumbing at the bar after a fire completely destroyed our beautiful cherry wood bar. I followed Danny home one day to get a part for a job and he took me to his three or four bay garage behind the three family he owned. You could not imagine this garage. It was absolutely loaded to the rafters with old, new, salvaged, and left over parts from jobs Danny had done.
With the memory area in my brain awakened I could go on for pages, but I think I better save some stuff for future entries. Thanks for continued reading.
RECIPE TIME: I decided to take some sea scallops out of the freezer and do a nice simple meal of seared scallops with butter, garlic, wine and fresh parsley and then give you the recipe I used. Unfortunately I was not happy at all with the results. I’m finding that many published recipes do not work, mostly because of incorrect heats and times suggested. I’m now inclined to use more of my own judgement instead. Anyway, here’s one I know works. Made it many times.
Herbed Green Beans
1 pound fresh green beans, cut into 1-inch lengths
4 tablespoons butter
¼ cup minced onions
½ Garlic clove, minced
¼ cup minced celery
¾ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon rosemary
¼ teaspoon basil
Soak the green beans in cold water for 15 minutes Melt butter in a 1-1/2 quart saucepan.
Sauté the onions, garlic and celery in it until tender.
Add the drained beans, cover, and cook over low heat for 15 to 20 minutes. Add seasonings.
4 servings
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